“Do you know how crazy the economy is right now? I mean all my friends get help from their parents,” asks Hannah Horvath in the opening scene of Girls as her parents talk about her “groovy lifestyle” and cut her off financially over a plate of spaghetti. Girls, a 2010s post-recession show about early 20-somethings who exercise a fair level of privilege, garnered millennials a bit of a rough reputation as some characters like Hannah were difficult to root for. But as the series resurges in popularity, its reminder of the difficulties even fairly well-off young adults have in managing their finances still hits a little too close to home. Ten years later, millennials, and now Gen Z, are still turning to their parents for help.
More than three-fourths (77%) of millennials and Gen Zers are still somewhat or very dependent on their parents for money, finds a recent Experian survey that polled more than 2,000 young adults. While they admit that they struggle with some spending habits, it’s also largely a consequence of the economic hand they’ve been dealt—graduating into a recession and its aftermath (the 2008 financial crisis for millennials and the more short-lived coronavirus recession for Gen Z), juggling massive student loan debt, and facing record-high inflation. Even six-figure salaries don’t stretch as far for these young adults anymore.
